


The Ghost

by MTOart



Category: Sicario (2015), Sicario day of the soldado
Genre: I am not a writer, I may not even consider continuing this, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-14 23:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15400305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MTOart/pseuds/MTOart
Summary: Just a post soldado concept.





	The Ghost

“A grieving father? There’s plenty around, find another one.”  
Matt immediately doubts he can. Alejandro wasn’t just a grieving father. Sometimes Matt feared the man wasn’t even human anymore. Just a monster with a threaded leash waiting for an opportunity to justify taking it off. Recruiting him hadn’t been easy.  
It took time, a lot of time. When Matt first met Alejandro, the man was a well-dressed lawyer with strong morals eager to assist in bringing down the cartel threatening his neighborhood. He would testify against the Medellin and had directly put himself on their radar by agreeing to serve his law and country. It was safe to say Matt, in this being one of his earlier assignments, felt like he had to help Alejandro exact his revenge when the whole world came crushing down on him. Just as things were about to go smoothly Alejandro’s family was brutally murdered and the man’s testimony rendered useless. Just another case file to stock the shelves of hundreds upon hundreds of cartel related deaths. 

He remembers vividly walking into Alejandro’s home and finding the man with a gun in his lap seeming eager to point it at his own head. He remembers the way he had spoken to him as if the decibels in his voice could pull the trigger under Alejandro’s finger for him. Matt had been careful then, far more careful than he had ever been before. He had made promises he wasn’t sure he could keep. That he’d get them, that if Alejandro worked with him they would take down the whole tower of cards.  
Broken, tired and most of all empty Alejandro had relented to the touch of Matt’s hands around his own. He had allowed Matt to pull him from the brink and therein put his trust in a man whose business was deceit. 

Matt quickly learned there was something incredibly terrifying about a man with nothing left to lose. 

Replacing him wasn’t an option. Watching him die was possibly worse. 

The footage of a bullet going through a bagged head turning a squirming form into a motionless one wasn’t something new to Matt but it was the first time in a long time it hit him. Alejandro the lone wolf shot dead in the desert by some nameless kid.  
Matt got reckless after that, he returned home with quite a couple scrapes more than he needed to get, blew off a bunch of rules he should have followed and got put in the hot seat for losing his cool.  
He was invaluable, difficult to replace, apparently more so than Alejandro had been to the people he worked for. It struck a chord somewhere deep within in a place he hadn’t yet discovered before. Sure, Matt had been frustrated with his employers numerous times. He had yelled at them in meeting rooms and coolly laughed them off over video calls. This was a different sort of frustration, the sort that nags and bites for weeks without making itself clear enough to get rid of. It made him angry, sharp like a knife and eventually Matt was forced off a case when he drowned a lead in a cup of water. “Get your head back” was the order he got on his send off. He mirthlessly snorted at that, the voice in the back of his head reminding him it would be pretty hard to get his head back after seeing it shot down in the desert.  
Alejandro stuck with him in his frustration. 

Matt started his forced sabbatical in celebration, a celebration to being labeled ‘fucked up enough to be forced to quit’. He deserved a drink, hell he convinced himself he deserved the whole bottle, he deserved getting laid in nameless places with even more forgettable faces on top or underneath him. For a hot minute he considered seeing a shrink but considering the amount of NDA’s he had been saddled up with Matt couldn’t even introduce himself. Liquor and sex were the answers to his frustration at least until they weren’t. It took him three months to get tired of his own shit way of dealing with the situation. Matt’s lost people before and he knew the drill, the five stages of grief were as routine as the days of a workweek and getting stuck in anger wasn’t something he’s used to. 

He makes the pragmatic decision to move on, or at least he decides to stop drinking himself into liver failure before he turns yellow. 

The voice in the back of his head comes back pretty much instantly. It whispers words of guilt and promises an afterlife in a place he was pretty sure of he no longer believed in. “Fairytales.” He reminds himself cutting vegetables for an omelet in the kitchen to break up the two-week streak of eating takeout and leftovers. Hell wasn’t any more real than the Easter bunny or stories of ghosts. Real ghosts left people in shallow graves and apparently once the tides turned against them real ghosts like Alejandro got shot in the head. Something he considers could as well happened to him as his brain catches up to the fact that he decided to make an omelet without buying eggs. Refusing to opt out easily Matt sticks his socks into his slippers gets his wallet, gun and goes out to get the ingredients he needs. Some painkillers for his head are a welcome intrusive reminder. 

The sun is up high when he gets to the store, the menial task reminds him that life exists outside of the violent bubble he feels so welcome in. He makes small talk easily and charms a lady into considering coming over if she didn’t have to work all day. It’s meaningless but entertaining. Quite opposite of what he wants to believe he does when he works. Somewhere deep-down Matt understands that ‘meaningless but entertaining’ is the sum all of all things in his life. In the end everyone ends up dead and the world will keep on turning.  
When he gets to his car he smiles to himself, perhaps he skipped a couple steps, perhaps the five stages of grief are more of a continuously spinning wheel of misery. Sometimes he’ll accept things then the next moment quite like the world itself he’ll start turning again. 

“Fuck…” Matt is lost in thought enough to miss the turn to his apartment complex. Once he finally gets home he feels lighter but it might just be the lack of breakfast convincing him he feels that way. A note on the door stops him in his steps and for a second Matt considers just going back to his car and turning away from his home. Omelet be damned he’s not getting shot because some freak figured out he orchestrated the past decade of drug wars.  
‘I’m in the living room, don’t fucking shoot me.’ He recognizes the handwriting as his own and looks around to make sure he’s not going to end up dead upon opening the door. Matt pulls his gun to be sure, leaves his groceries on the floor where he stands and somewhere between opening his door and aiming into the empty hallway feels his heart start pounding in his chest. 

Ghosts didn’t exist, real ones at least. But Matt knows where he last left that note and it’s been months since the person he left it to got killed. 

“Charming-“  
He nearly shoots on reflex but gets grabbed at the wrist by a pair of hands his own are all too familiar with. Matt practically freezes and stares at the Ghost he left in the desert. For once he didn’t have a smarmy remark, no jib or jive to throw Alejandro’s way. The man looks tired, exhausted and half his face painfully bruised beneath a layer of fuzz Matt’s rarely seen the man wear. 

It’s a near stalemate of silences as Alejandro inspects Matt’s stunned expression. He gestures his eyes to the gun pointed over his shoulder and inclines his head lightly before offering a quiet “Can I lower this?”  
Matt’s brain catches up to what must’ve happened in the desert and what’s currently happening in his house and he clips the safety on briefly wondering if Alejandro came to get his revenge on getting left behind.  
“You here to kill me?” He can’t help but ask for the obvious, considers whether or not he’ll be able to make that omelet before dying but gets his answer in the shake of Alejandro’s head. “You look like shit, that hurt?” Matt points to his own cheeks as he puts his weapon away and gestures Alejandro to actually get into the living room.  
Picking up his groceries Matt closes the door and Alejandro nods that his face does in fact hurt like hell.  
Matt has a million questions, no patience and about thirty words of sign language in his active vocabulary. When he gets to the living room he puts his groceries on the counter and offers Alejandro a bottle of water and the strip of painkillers intended for his headache. 

“Of course, you’re the sorta guy to survive getting shot in the head. Sign it to me handsome. How’d you end up here.” Alejandro arched a brow at Matt’s casual shift in tone and took the water offered. He showed a pill bottle of his own and had the thing taken off him for Matt to decide those were a much better solution to his headache than the sad excuse for medicine he had bought over the counter. 

Once he turns back to look at Alejandro he’s slowly signing what happened to him. ‘Shot through mouth, me. Got out with a car. Fixed up at hospital, used different name.’  
Matt misses a couple gestures, but Alejandro’s spoken with idiots before and takes it slow, supplies a spoken word here and there but tries not to move his mouth too much. Matt gives a nod and can’t help but feel frustration leave his system and make place for a whole new form of admiration. Alejandro couldn’t be replaced and apparently, he couldn’t be killed either.  
‘Where were you?’ Is the question Matt clearly understands and guilt briefly chips away at the pleased expression his face seemed to permanently stuck on. Where had he been? Angry, moping, sleeping around. He should’ve known Alejandro was tougher than a kid with a bullet.  
There’s no point lying to him “…Gotta be honest here, I thought you were dead. You got shot through the head, man. Ain’t a lotta people who survive that.” Somewhere he remembers not wanting to check on Alejandro. The organization wanted him dead and as long as nobody went to retrieve the body he would be. “According to my sources you didn’t.”  
Alejandro genuinely cracks a smile at him which is quickly replaced by a wince and Matt can’t help reaching out to touch his shoulder. “Should’ve been there t’help you out-“He’s cut off by Alejandro looking up at him, a violence behind dark eyes Matt has seen numerous times but hardly ever aimed at him. “Isabel?”  
Matt could bless the god he didn’t believe in he saved the kid out of spite. “Witness protection. You got her cross the border, bud.” Relief washes over tired features and smooths the violence from those eyes. Matt doesn’t want to consider what would have happened if he had followed his orders on that call. The hot seat suddenly didn’t feel all that hot anymore and getting forced on hiatus had quite possibly been the best outcome. 

“You staying over? I can pull my junk out of the guest room.” Looking around Alejandro seemed to question Matt’s ability to pull any ‘junk’ out of any room in the apartment. Empty take out boxes and liquor bottles were scattered around like the decoration of a television frat house. Matt scoffed when Alejandro just muttered a “Just the guest room?”  
“I’ll hire someone.” Matt confidently answered. 

He felt lighter, genuinely so. After having and sharing breakfast Matt figured that he wouldn’t get a lot of his friends back from the dead and the only alcohol he wanted to get was to make sure Alejandro’s face wouldn’t kill him via infection. 

Matt made sure Alejandro was still ‘dead’ according to the people who wanted him to be. He decided to not even mention having someone over to Steve when his colleague called in to ask for feedback on a case. The chatty idiot was far too smart for his own good but knew when to read between the smarmy lines Matt offered and get back to work.  
Alejandro stayed over for a week or so and seemingly disappeared just as easily. He wasn’t one to stick around, neither would Matt want him to. Their lives were on opposing paths and once Matt returned to work he carried a secret in with him he would take to the grave. One of many he joked to himself; How typical did the name Graver feel on the thought he carried the secrets of so many with him. 

It wasn’t as if he forgot. He wouldn’t forget failing to assist the guy he had pulled into this world. The vision of that wriggling form stilling in the desert was quite vivid in Matt’s mind. But getting back to work made things feel familiar again. He worked with different people, worked on different cases but all in all it felt the same. The only thing that truly cracked the routine in his life were the quiet messages left before a visit. A message scrawled into the dust on his rear window where he’d find Alejandro passed out in the back of his car. A note on the door or message from the front desk of the roadside motel he stayed at. Alejandro never stayed long and over the passing year his face healed up enough to make conversation easy again. Not that he had ever been the chatty type. It was enjoyable to simply have him around the house and as Matt offered him a beer and sat down on the porch with him one clouded evening it hit the man that Alejandro could very well be the only person he could consider more than a friend. Or perhaps Matt hadn’t had friends in a long time and had mistaken his colleagues and the ghost for more than they were. 

Regardless Matt turned to look at Alejandro who seemed content sitting under the cover of the porch as rain started to break from the heavens and he felt content.  
“You sticking around longer than a couple hours this time? I’m starting to feel like you’re cheatin on me with some other asshole.” The cocky tone in his voice earned Matt a smile over the neck of a bottle and Alejandro took a sip. “I want to know who made the call.”  
Matt wanted to pretend he was dumb in that moment, he wanted to feign being an idiot and question ‘which call’ Alejandro wanted him to think of. Instead he opts for the only pressing response his brain could come up with. “Ain’t a good idea to go after those guys.. They’re not fucking around like cartel fuckups… I ain’t messing around, bud.”  
Alejandro clearly hears the warning he gets but simply takes a slug of his beer and repeats himself. “I want to know.” Matt’s once again reminded he’s not dealing with a person and he’s unsure about answering. He’s not too worried about his own ass, not yet at least. What chews at his chest is the thought that answering Alejandro could get the man killed within the week. Sure, the guy is good but Matt knows better than to consider one man taking down everyone he’s worked for and with a possibility.  
“You really wanna go after the people who hired you? You know you’re gonna put me in a shit position right?”  
“You’re already in that position.” Alejandro enjoys reminding Matt of his fuck-ups. But where buying decaf instead of proper coffee wouldn’t have any life changing effects he now has to pick between betraying his colleagues or putting his hands on human lightning. 

The silence between them is no longer amicable, it’s the sort of tension Matt has felt on summer nights before heavy storms and tornado warnings. It’s the sort of tension that stood the hair on his neck on end and make every sip of beer taste more bitter than the last. Matt cracked in a hopeful sign of resignation, sighing, hanging his head and rubbing his thumb thoughtfully over the silvery lines left on the inside of his palm. He was either going to live or die based on the mood Alejandro was in and Matt didn’t have to look at the clouds above to know it wasn’t a good one.  
“You’re asking me t’do something I can’t-“  
Alejandro lowered his drink and gave a court nod, seemingly empathetic to Matt’s decision. 

It was safe to say Matt knew the fist was coming before it connected with his temple. That didn’t mean he was happy to feel the pain crack through his skull like thunder or didn’t curse up a slew of half-assed insults when he ended up in the dirt trying to kick Alejandro off his feet before he’d get the gun out of his belt to shoot him. It was the first time Matt thoroughly regretted wearing flipflops pretty much everywhere he went. He would’ve much preferred boots right then but glared up against the steadily pouring rain to realize he was already too late. Alejandro dropped his weight onto his waist and expertly pinned Matt’s arms to his side. Had Matt not heard the click of a gun before he saw it he would have tried to throw Alejandro, he reckoned he could have considering his position and weight, but Alejandro was no teenager pinning him to a matt in high school. This was no wrestling match with rules and a referee, this was the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object and winning.  
The gun to his throat sucked any attempt of fighting Alejandro off of him out of his skin and bones. Matt simply opened up his hands and cursed against the rain pouring into his eyes as he tried to appeal to whatever shred of humanity Alejandro had left through eye contact.  
“Fuck- Fuck off, man! You know I can’t tell you!”  
“I know” The stone-cold reply was followed by Alejandro nudging the gun under Matt’s chin. An angle Matt was somehow glad about would at least immediately kill him would the hitman decide he was done playing around. “I know you can’t.” There was almost something cruel about the kindness in Alejandro’s voice but considering his clothes were getting soaked and he had a gun to his head Matt wouldn’t mistake that voice for what he wanted it to be. 

“I think you should reconsider.”  
Of course he fucking would, of course the guy with the gun would suggest Matt to ‘reconsider’ where his loyalties lie quite like a lawyer would suggest a client to weigh his options on the sort of execution he could go for. “Great I will, but can we do this inside?” Matt was reaching now and the fact that he tried was almost an insult to Alejandro’s knowledge of him. The hitman arched a brow as if to wordlessly ask whether or not Matt seriously thought that was going to work. Matt opened his fists in a sign of ‘peace’ “Yeah, okay, fair enough…” He had to swallow the pill or swallow the bullet and at the moment his idiot lawyer was making a very compelling argument for the pills. “Foards, it was Foards who made the call-“They both knew it probably came from higher up but Matt had sold his soul to the highest bidder and for it Alejandro turned the gun sideways to point into the desert instead of Matt’s skin.  
“Anyone else?”  
Matt felt sick to his stomach but in for a penny- “Of course there are! You think any calls I get are made by one person? You got caught in a shitstorm situation and I tried, man-“Somehow saying so made him feel sicker but Alejandro staring him down into the dirt like the worm Matt was often referred to being justified the means to an end; That end being surviving another shitty day in paradise. “They wanted to kill you both, leave no loose ends, clear the damn roster. You know how this shit goes.” And Alejandro knew, it just seemed he wanted to hear it said out loud before he went after the people who were so willing to sacrifice a man they pulled up from the underworld themselves. 

Matt relented against the fact he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon and where the rain chilled through his clothes and skin the weight on his waist kept him from shivering.  
Just as quickly as the storm of a man had come down he seemed to ease up and as Alejandro simply got off of Matt and walked back towards the cover of the porch. Matt barely managed to push himself to sit up in the dirt without throwing up but what were another set of nightmares to the ones he already chose to ignore completely? “I actually liked these shorts, asshole...”  
The amused scoff that came from Alejandro threw Matt for a loop; He was back to being friendly... Or at least back to as friendly as lightning could be.

They finished their drinks in silence, Matt ended up pouring his own out in the sink after Alejandro had dried himself off and left for the night. It wasn’t the first time, but the nausea of fear hadn’t been a companion to Matt for a long time. He locked the doors and checked double that night knowing fully well that if Alejandro wanted to kill him a couple locks wouldn’t even slow him down.  
 


End file.
